Chapter VNECESSITY OF EXAMINING THE CONDITION OF THE STATES BEFORE THAT OF THE UNION AT LARGE

IN the following chapter the form of government established in
America on the principle of the sovereignty of the people will be
examined; what are its means of action, its hindrances, its
advantages and its dangers. The first difficulty that presents
itself arises from the complex nature of the Constitution of the
United States, which consists of two distinct social structures,
connected, and, as it were, encased one within the other; two
governments, completely separate and almost independent, the one
fulfilling the ordinary duties and responding to the daily and
indefinite calls of a community, the other circumscribed within
certain limits and only exercising an exceptional authority over
the general interests of the country. In short, there are
twenty-four small sovereign nations, whose agglomeration
constitutes the body of the Union. To examine the Union before we
have studied the states, would be to adopt a method filled with
obstacles. The form of the Federal government of the United
States was the last to be adopted; and it is in fact nothing more
than a summary of those republican principles which were current
in the whole community before it existed, and independently of
its existence. Moreover, the Federal government, as I have just
observed, is the exception; the government of the states is the
rule. The author who should attempt to exhibit the picture as a
whole before he had explained its details would necessarily fall
into obscurity and repetition.

The great political principles which now govern American society
undoubtedly took their origin and their growth in the
state. We must know the state, then, in order to gain a clue to
the rest. The states that now compose the American Union all
present the same features, as far as regards the external aspect
of their institutions. Their political or administrative life is
centered in three focuses of action, which may be compared to the
different nervous centers that give motion to the human body. The
township is the first in order, then the county, and lastly the state.

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF TOWNSHIPS. Why the author begins the
examination of the political institutions with the township --Its
existence in all nations--Difficulty of establishing and
preserving municipal independence--Its importance--Why the author
has selected the township system of New England as the main topic
of his discussion.

IT is not without intention that I begin this subject with the
township. The village or township is the only association which
is so perfectly natural that, wherever a number of men are
collected, it seems to constitute itself.

The town or tithing, then, exists in all nations, whatever
their laws and customs may be: it is man who makes monarchies and
establishes republics, but the township seems to come directly
from the hand of God. But although the existence of the township
is coeval with that of man, its freedom is an infrequent and
fragile thing. A nation can always establish great political
assemblies, because it habitually contains a certain number of
individuals fitted by their talents, if not by their habits, for
the direction of affairs. The township, on the contrary, is
composed of coarser materials, which are less easily fashioned by
the legislator. The difficulty of establishing its independence
rather augments than diminishes with the increasing intelligence
of the people. A highly civilized community can hardly tolerate a
local independence, is disgusted at its numerous blunders, and is
apt to despair of success before the experiment is completed.
Again, the immunities of townships, which have been obtained with
so much difficulty, are least of all protected against the
encroachments of the supreme power. They are unable to struggle,
single-handed, against a strong and enterprising government, and
they cannot defend themselves with success unless they are
identified with the customs of the nation and supported by public
opinion. Thus until the independence of townships is amalgamated
with the manners of a people, it is easily destroyed; and it is
only after a long existence in the laws that it can be thus
amalgamated. Municipal freedom is not the fruit of human efforts;
it is rarely created by others, but is, as it were, secretly
self-produced in the midst of a semi-barbarous state of society.
The constant action of the laws and the national habits,
peculiar circumstances, and, above all, time, may consolidate it;
but there is certainly no nation on the continent of Europe that
has experienced its advantages. Yet municipal institutions
constitute the strength of free nations. Town meetings are to
liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within
the people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy
it. A nation may establish a free government, but without
municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.
Transient passions, the interests of an hour, or the chance of
circumstances may create the external forms of independence, but
the despotic tendency which has been driven into the interior of
the social system will sooner or later reappear on the surface.

To make the reader understand the general principles on
which the political organization of the counties and townships in
the United States rests, I have thought it expedient to choose
one of the states of New England as an example, to examine in
detail the mechanism of its constitution, and then to cast a
general glance over the rest of the country.

The township and the county are not organized in the same
manner in every part of the Union; it is easy to perceive,
however, that nearly the same principles have guided the
formation of both of them throughout the Union. I am inclined to
believe that these principles have been carried further and have
produced greater results in New England than elsewhere.
Consequently they stand out there in higher relief and offer
greater facilities to the observations of a stranger.

The township institutions of New England form a complete and
regular whole; they are old; they have the support of the laws
and the still stronger support of the manners of the community,
over which they exercise a prodigious influence. For all these
reasons they deserve our special attention.

LIMITS OF THE TOWNSHIP

THE township of New England holds a middle place between the
commune and the canton of France. Its average population is from
two to three thousand,1 so that it is not so large, on the one
hand, that the interests of its inhabitants would be likely to
conflict, and not so small, on the other, but that men capable of
conducting its affairs may always be found among its citizens.

POWERS OF THE TOWNSHIP IN NEW ENGLAND. The people the source of
all power in the township as elsewhere--Manages its affairs--No
municipal council--The greater part of the
authority vested in the selectmen--How the selectmen act-Town
meeting--Enumeration of the officers of the township --Obligatory
and remunerated functions.

IN the township, as well as everywhere else, the people are the
source of power; but nowhere do they exercise their power more
immediately. In America the people form a master who must be
obeyed to the utmost limits of possibility.

In New England the majority act by representatives in conducting
the general business of the state. It is necessary that
it should be so. But in the townships, where the legislative and
administrative action of the government is nearer to the governed,
the system of representation is not adopted. There is no
municipal council; but the body of voters, after having chosen
its magistrates, directs them in everything that exceeds the
simple and ordinary execution of the laws of the state.2

This state of things is so contrary to our ideas, and so
different from our customs that I must furnish some examples to
make it intelligible.

The public duties in the township are extremely numerous and
minutely divided, as we shall see farther on; but most of the administrative
power is vested in a few persons, chosen annually,
called "the selectmen." 3

The general laws of the state impose certain duties on the
selectmen, which they may fulfill without the authority of their
townsmen, but which they can neglect only on their own
responsibility. The state law requires them, for instance, to
draw up a list of voters in their townships; and if they omit
this duty, they are guilty of a misdemeanor. In all the affairs
that are voted in town meeting, however, the selectmen carry into
effect the popular mandate, as in France the maire executes the
decree of the municipal council. They usually act upon their own
responsibility and merely put in practice principles that have
been previously recognized by the majority. But if they wish to
make any change in the existing state of things or to undertake
any new enterprise, they must refer to the source of their power.
If, for instance, a school is to be established, the selectmen
call a meeting of the voters on a certain day at an appointed
place. They explain the urgency of the case; they make known the
means of satisfying it, the probable expense, and the site that
seems to be most favorable. The meeting is consulted on these
several points; it adopts the principle, marks out the site,
votes the tax, and confides the execution of its resolution to
the selectmen.

The selectmen alone have the right of calling a town
meeting; but they may be required to do so. If ten citizens wish
to submit a new project to the assent of the town, they may
demand a town meeting; the selectmen are obliged to comply and
have only the right of presiding at the meeting.4 These political
forms, these social customs, doubtless seem strange to us in
France. I do not here undertake to judge them or to make known
the secret causes by which they are produced and maintained. I
only describe them.

The selectmen are elected every year, in the month of March
or April. The town meeting chooses at the same time a multitude
of other town officers,5 who are entrusted with important administrative
functions. The assessors rate the township; the
collectors receive the tax. A constable is appointed to keep the
peace, to watch the streets, and to execute the laws; the town
clerk records the town votes, orders, and grants. The treasurer
keeps the funds. The overseers of the poor perform the difficult
task of carrying out the poor-laws. Committee-men are appointed
to attend to the schools and public instruction; and the
surveyors of highways, who take care of the greater and lesser
roads of the township, complete the list of the principal
functionaries. But there are other petty officers still; such
as the parish committee, who audit the expenses of public worship;
fire wardens, who direct the efforts of the citizens in case of fire;
tithing-men, hog-reeves, fence-viewers, timber-measurers, and sealers
of weights and measures.6

There are, in all, nineteen principal offices in a township.
Every inhabitant is required, on pain of being fined, to
undertake these different functions, which, however, are almost
all paid, in order that the poorer citizens may give time to them
without loss. In general, each official act has its price, and
the officers are remunerated in proportion to what they have
done.

LIFE IN THE TOWNSHIP. Everyone the best judge of his own interest--
Corollary of the principle of the sovereignty of the
people--Application of these doctrines in the townships of --The
township of New England is sovereign in all that concerns itself
alone, and subject to the state in all other matters--Duties of
the township to the state--In France the government lends its
agents to the commune--In America it is the reverse.

I HAVE already observed that the principle of the sovereignty of
the people governs the whole political system of the Anglo-
Americans. Every page of this book will afford new applications
of the same doctrine. In the nations by which the sovereignty of
the people is recognized, every individual has an equal share of
power and participates equally in the government of the state.
Why, then, does he obey society, and what are the natural limits
of this obedience? Every individual is always supposed to be as
well informed, as virtuous, and as strong as any of his fellow
citizens. He obeys society, not because he is inferior to those
who conduct it or because he is less capable than any other of
governing himself, but because he acknowledges the utility of an
association with his fellow men and he knows that no such association
can exist without a regulating force. He is a subject
in all that concerns the duties of citizens to each other; he is
free and responsible to God alone, for all that concerns himself.
Hence arises the maxim, that everyone is the best and sole judge
of his own private interest, and that society has no right to control a
man's actions unless they are prejudicial to the common weal or
unless the common weal demands his help. This doctrine is universally
admitted in the United States. I shall hereafter examine
the general influence that it exercises on the ordinary actions
of life: I am now speaking of the municipal bodies.

The township, taken as a whole, and in relation to the
central government, is only an individual, like any other to whom
the theory I have just described is applicable. Municipal
independence in the United States is therefore a natural
consequence of this very principle of the sovereignty of the
people. All the American republics recognize it more or less, but
circumstances have peculiarly favored its growth in New England.

In this part of the Union political life had its origin in
the townships; and it may almost be said that each of them
originally formed an independent nation. When the kings of
England afterwards asserted their supremacy, they were content to
assume the central power of the state. They left the townships
where they were before; and although they are now subject to the
state, they were not at first, or were hardly so. They did not
receive their powers from the central authority, but, on the
contrary, they gave up a portion of their independence to the
state. This is an important distinction and one that the reader
must constantly recollect. The townships are generally
subordinate to the state only in those interests which I shall
term social, as they are common to all the others. They are
independent in all that concerns themselves alone; and among the
inhabitants of New England I believe that not a man is to be
found who would acknowledge that the state has any right to
interfere in their town affairs. The towns of New England buy and
sell, sue and are sued, augment or diminish their budgets, and no
administrative authority ever thinks of offering any opposition.7

There are certain social duties, however, that they are
bound to fulfill. If the state is in need of money, a town cannot
withhold the supplies; 8 if the state projects a road, the
township cannot refuse to let it cross its territory; if a police
regulation is made by the state, it must be enforced by the town;
if a uniform system of public instruction is enacted, every town
is bound to establish the schools which the law ordains.9 When I
come to speak of the administration of the laws in the United States, I shall point
out how and by what means the townships are compelled to obey in
these different cases; I here merely show the existence of the
obligation. Strict as this obligation is, the government of the
state imposes it in principle only, and in its performance the
township resumes all its independent rights. Thus, taxes are
voted by the state, but they are levied and collected by the
township; the establishment of a school is obligatory, but the
township builds, pays for, and superintends it. In France the
state collector receives the local imposts; in America the town
collector receives the taxes of the state. Thus the French
government lends its agents to the commune; in America the
township lends its agents to the government. This fact alone
shows how widely the two nations differ.

SPIRIT OF THE TOWNSHIPS OF NEW ENGLAND. How the township of New
England wins the affections of its inhabitants- difficulty of
creating local public spirit in Europe--The rights and duties of
the American township favorable to it--Sources of local
attachment in the United States--How town spirit shows itself in
New England--Its happy effects.

IN America not only do municipal bodies exist, but they are kept
alive and supported by town spirit. The township of New England
possesses two advantages which strongly excite the interest of
mankind: namely, independence and authority. Its sphere is
limited, indeed; but within that sphere its action is
unrestrained. This independence alone gives it a real importance,
which its extent and population would not ensure.

It is to be remembered, too, that the affections of men
generally turn towards power. Patriotism is not durable in a
conquered nation. The New Englander is attached to his township
not so much because he was born in it, but because it is a free
and strong community, of which he is a member, and which deserves
the care spent in managing it. In Europe the absence of local
public spirit is a frequent subject of regret to those who are in
power; everyone agrees that there is no surer guarantee of order
and tranquillity, and yet nothing is more difficult to create. If
the municipal bodies were made powerful and independent, it is feared that they
would become too strong and expose the state to anarchy. Yet
without power and independence a town may contain good subjects,
but it can have no active citizens. Another important fact is
that the township of New England is so constituted as to excite
the warmest of human affections without arousing the ambitious
passions of the heart of man The officers of the county are not
elected, and their authority is very limited. Even the state is
only a second-rate community whose tranquil and obscure administration
offers no inducement sufficient to draw men away from the
home of their interests into the turmoil of public affairs. The
Federal government confers power and honor on the men who conduct
it, but these individuals can never be very numerous. The high
station of the Presidency can only be reached at an advanced
period of life; and the other Federal functionaries of a high
class are generally men who have been favored by good luck or
have been distinguished in some other career. Such cannot be the
permanent aim of the ambitious. But the township, at the center
of the ordinary relations of life, serves as a field for the
desire of public esteem, the want of exciting interest, and the
taste for authority and popularity; and the passions that
commonly embroil society change their character when they find a
vent so near the domestic hearth and the family circle.

In the American townships power has been distributed with
admirable skill, for the purpose of interesting the greatest
possible number of persons in the common weal. Independently of
the voters, who are from time to time called into action, the
power is divided among innumerable functionaries and officers,
who all, in their several spheres, represent the powerful
community in whose name they act. The local administration thus
affords an 'unfailing source of profit and interest to a vast
number of individuals.

The American system, which divides the local authority among
so many citizens, does not scruple to multiply the functions of
the town officers. For in the United States it is believed, and
with truth, that patriotism is a kind of devotion which is
strengthened by ritual observance. In this manner the activity of
the township is continually perceptible; it is daily manifested
in the fulfillment of a duty or the exercise of a right; and a
constant though gentle motion is thus kept up in society, which
animates without disturbing it. The American attaches himself to his little
community for the same reason that the mountaineer clings to his
hills, because the characteristic features of his country are
there more distinctly marked; it has a more striking physiognomy.

The existence of the townships of New England is, in
general, a happy one. Their government is suited to their tastes,
and chosen by themselves. In the midst of the profound peace and
general comfort that reign in America, the commotions of
municipal life are infrequent. The conduct of local business is
easy. The political education of the people has long been
complete; say rather that it was complete when the people first
set foot upon the soil. In New England no tradition exists of a
distinction of rank; no portion of the community is tempted to
oppress the remainder; and the wrongs that may injure isolated
individuals are forgotten in the general contentment that
prevails. If the government has faults (and it would no doubt be
easy to point out some), they do not attract notice, for the
government really emanates from those it governs, and whether it
acts ill or well, this fact casts the protecting spell of a
parental pride over its demerits. Besides, they have nothing
wherewith to compare it. England formerly governed the mass of
the colonies; but the people was always sovereign in the
township, where its rule is not only an ancient, but a primitive
state.

The native of New England is attached to his township
because it is independent and free: his co-operation in its
affairs ensures his attachment to its interests, the well-being
it affords him secures his affection; and its welfare is the aim
of his ambition and of his future exertions. He takes a part in
every occurence in the place; he practices the art of government
in the small sphere within his reach; he accustoms himself to
those forms without which liberty can only advance by
revolutions; he imbibes their spirit; he acquires a taste for
order, comprehends the balance of powers, and collects clear
practical notions on the nature of his duties and the extent of
his rights.

THE COUNTIES OF NEW ENGLAND

THE division of the counties in America has considerable
analogy with that of the arrondissements of France. The limits of
both are arbitrarily laid down, and the various districts which
they contain have no necessary connection, no common tradition
or natural sympathy, no community of existence; their object is
simply to facilitate the administration.

The extent of the township was too small to contain a system
of judicial institutions; the county, therefore, is the first
center of judicial action. Each county has a court of justice,10
a sheriff to execute its decrees, and a prison for criminals.
There are certain wants which are felt alike by all the townships
of a county; it is therefore natural that they should be
satisfied by a central authority. In Massachusetts this authority
is vested in the hands of several magistrates, who are appointed
by the governor of the state, with the advice 11 Of his
council.12 The county commissioners have only a limited and
exceptional authority, which can be used only in certain
predetermined cases. The state and the townships possess all the
power requisite for ordinary and public business. The county
commissioners can only prepare the budget; it is voted by the
legislature; 13 there is no assembly that directly or indirectly
represents the county. It has, therefore, properly speaking, no
political existence.

A twofold tendency may be discerned in most of the American
constitutions, which impels the legislator to concentrate the
legislative and to divide the executive power. The township of
New England has in itself an indestructible principle of life;
but this distinct existence could only be fictitiously introduced
into the county, where the want of it has not been felt. All the
townships united have but one representation, which is the state,
the center of all national authority; beyond the action of the
township and that of the state, it may be said that there is
nothing but individual action.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNMENT IN NEW ENGLAND. Administration
not perceived in America--Why?--The Europeans believe that
liberty is promoted by depriving the social authority of some of
its rights; the Americans, by dividing its exercise --Almost all
the administration confined to the township, and divided among
the town officers--No trace of an administrative hierarchy
perceived, either in the township or above it-Why this is the
case--How it happens that the administration of the state is
uniform--Who is empowered to enforce the
obedience of the township and the county to the law--The
introduction of judicial power into the administration--Consequence
of the extension of the elective principle to all functionaries--
The justice of the peace in New England--By whom
appointed--County officer: ensures the administration of the
townships--Court of sessions--Its mode of action-Who brings
matters before this court f or action--Right of inspection and
indictment parceled out like the other administrative
functions--Informers encouraged by the division of fines.

NOTHING is more striking to a European traveler in the United
States than the absence of what we term the government, or the
administration. Written laws exist in America, and one sees the
daily execution of them; but although everything moves regularly,
the mover can nowhere be discovered. The hand that directs the
social machine is invisible. Nevertheless, as all persons must
have recourse to certain grammatical forms, which are the
foundation of human language, in order to express their thoughts;
so all communities are obliged to secure their existence by submitting
to a certain amount of authority, without which they fall
into anarchy. This authority may be distributed in several ways,
but it must always exist somewhere.

There are two methods of diminishing the force of authority
in a nation. The first is to weaken the supreme power in its very
principle, by forbidding or preventing society from acting in its
own defense under certain circumstances. To weaken authority in
this manner is the European way of establishing freedom.

The second manner of diminishing the influence of authority
does not consist in stripping society of some of its rights, nor
in paralyzing its efforts, but in distributing the exercise of
its powers among various hands and in multiplying functionaries,
to each of whom is given the degree of power necessary for him to
perform his duty. There may be nations whom this distribution of
social powers might lead to anarchy, but in itself it is not
anarchical. The authority thus divided is, indeed, rendered less
irresistible and less perilous, but it is not destroyed.

The Revolution of the United States was the result of a
mature and reflecting preference for freedom, and not of a vague
or ill-defined craving for independence. It contracted no
alliance with the turbulent passions of anarchy, but its course was marked, on
the contrary, by a love of order and law.

It was never assumed in the United States that the citizen
of a free country has a right to do whatever he pleases; on the
contrary, more social obligations were there imposed upon him
than anywhere else. No idea was ever entertained of attacking the
principle or contesting the rights of society; but the exercise
of its authority was divided, in order that the office might be
powerful and the officer insignificant, and that the community
should be at once regulated and free. In no country in the world
does the law hold so absolute a language as in America; and in no
country is the right of applying it vested in so many hands. The
administrative power in the United States presents nothing either
centralized or hierarchical in its constitution; this accounts
for its passing unperceived. The power exists, but its
representative is nowhere to be seen.

I have already mentioned that the independent townships of
New England were not under guardianship, but took care of their
own private interests; and the municipal magistrates are the persons
who either execute the laws of the state or see that they
are executed.14 Besides the general laws the state sometimes
passes general police regulations; but more commonly the
townships and town officers, conjointly with the justices of the
peace, regulate the minor details of social life, according to
the necessities of the different localities, and promulgate such
orders as concern the health of the community and the peace as
well as morality of the citizens.15 Lastly, these town
magistrates provide, of their own accord and without any impulse
from without, for those unforeseen emergencies which frequently
occur in society.16

It results from what I have said that in the state of
Massachusetts the administrative authority is almost entirely
restricted to the township,17 and that it is there distributed
among a great number of individuals. In the French commune there
is properly but one official functionary--namely, the maire; and
in New England we have seen that there are nineteen. These
nineteen functionaries do not, in general, depend one upon
another. The law carefully prescribes a circle of action to each
of these magistrates; within that circle they are all-powerful to
perform their functions independently of any other authority. If
one looks higher than the township, one can find scarcely a trace
of an administrative hierarchy. It sometimes happens that the
county officers alter a decision of the townships or town
magistrates,18 but in general the authorities of the county have
no right to interfere with the authorities of the township 19
except in such matters as concern the county.

The magistrates of the township, as well as those of the
county, are bound in a small number of predetermined cases to
communicate their acts to the central government.20 But the
central government is not represented by an agent whose business
it is to publish police regulations and ordinances for the
execution of the laws, or to keep up a regular communication with
the officers of the township and the county, or to inspect their
conduct, direct their actions, or reprimand their faults. There
is no point that serves as a center to the radii of the
administration.

How, then, can the government be conducted on a uniform
plan? And how is the compliance of the counties and their magistrates
or the townships and their officers enforced? In the New
England states the legislative authority embraces more subjects
than it does in France; the legislator penetrates to the very
core of the administration; the law descends to minute details;
the same enactment prescribes the principle and the method of its
application, and thus imposes a multitude of strict and
rigorously defined obligations on the secondary bodies and
functionaries of the state. The consequence of this is that if
all the secondary functionaries of the administration conform to
the law, society in all its branches proceeds with the greatest
uniformity. The difficulty remains, how to compel the secondary
bodies and administrative officials to conform to the law. It may
be affirmed in general that society has only two methods of
enforcing the execution of the laws: a discretionary power may be
entrusted to one of them of directing all the others and of
removing them in case of disobedience; or the courts of justice
may be required to inflict judicial penalties on the offender.
But these two methods are not always available.

The right of directing a civil officer presupposes that of
cashiering him if he does not obey orders, and of rewarding him
by promotion if he fulfills his duties with propriety. But an
elected magistrate cannot be cashiered or promoted. All elective
functions are inalienable until their term expires. In fact, the
elected magistrate has nothing to expect or to fear except from
his constituents; and when all public offices are filled by
ballot, there can be no series of official dignities, because the
double right of commanding and of enforcing obedience can never
be vested in the same person, and because the power of issuing an
order can never be joined to that of inflicting a punishment or
bestowing a reward.

The communities, therefore, in which the secondary officials
of the government are elected are inevitably obliged to make
great use of judicial penalties as a means of administration.
This is not evident at first sight; for those in power are apt to
look upon the institution of elective officials as one
concession, and the subjection of the elected magistrate to the
judges of the land as another. They are equally averse to both
these innovations; and as they are more pressingly solicited to
grant the former than the latter, they accede to the election of
the magistrate and leave him independent of the judicial power.
Nevertheless, the second of these measures is the only thing that can possibly
counterbalance the first; and it will be found that an elective
authority that is not subject to judicial power will sooner or
later either elude all control or be destroyed. The courts of
justice are the only possible medium between the central power
and the administrative bodies; they alone can compel the elected
functionary to obey, without violating the rights of the elector.
The extension of judicial power in the political world ought
therefore to be in the exact ratio of the extension of elective
power; if these two institutions do not go hand in hand, the
state must fall into anarchy or into servitude.

It has always been remarked that judicial habits do not
render men especially fitted for the exercise of administrative
authority. The Americans have borrowed from their fathers, the
English, the idea of an institution that is unknown on the
continent of Europe: I allude to that of justices of the peace.

The justice of the peace is a sort of middle term between
the magistrate and the man of the world, between the civil
officer and the judge. A justice of the peace is a well-informed
citizen, though he is not necessarily learned in the law. His
office simply obliges him to execute the police regulations of
society, a task in which good sense and integrity are of more
avail than legal science. The justice introduces into the
administration, when he takes part in it, a certain taste for
established forms and publicity, which renders him a most
unserviceable instrument for despotism; and, on the other hand,
he is not a slave of those legal superstitions which render
judges unfit members of a government. The Americans have adopted
the English system of justices of the peace, depriving it of the
aristocratic character that distinguishes it in the mother
country. The governor of Massachusetts 21 appoints a certain
number of justices of the peace in every county, whose functions
last seven years.22 He further designates three individuals from
the whole body of justices, who form in each county what is
called the court of sessions. The justices take a personal share
in the public administration; they are sometimes entrusted with
administrative functions in conjunction with elected officers; 23
they sometimes constitute a tribunal before which the magistrates
summarily prosecute a refractory citizen, or the citizens inform
against the abuses of the magistrate. But it is in the court of
sessions that they exercise their most important functions. This
court meets twice a year, in the county town; in Massachusetts it
is empowered to enforce the obedience of most 24 Of the public
officers.25 It must be observed that in Massachusetts the court
of sessions is at the same time an administrative body, properly
so called, and a political tribunal. It has been mentioned that
the county is a purely administrative division. The court of
sessions presides over that small number of affairs which, as
they concern several townships, or all the townships of the
county in common, cannot be entrusted to any one of them in
particular. In all that concerns county business the duties of
the court of sessions are purely administrative; and if in its
procedure it occasionally introduces judicial forms, it is only
with a view to its own information,26 or as a guarantee to those
for whom it acts. But when the administration of the township is
brought before it, it acts as a judicial body and only in some
few cases as an administrative body.27

The first difficulty is to make the township itself, an
almost independent power, obey the general laws of the state. I
have stated that assessors are annually named by the town
meetings to levy the taxes. If a township attempts to evade the
payment of the taxes by neglecting to name its assessors, the
court of sessions condemns it to a heavy fine.28 The fine is
levied on each of the inhabitants; and the sheriff of the county,
who is the officer of justice, executes the mandate. Thus in the
United States, government authority, anxious to keep out of
sight, hides itself under the forms of a judicial sentence; and
its influence is at the same time fortified by that irresistible
power which men attribute to the formalities of law.

These proceedings are easy to follow and to understand. The
demands made upon a township are, in general, plain and accurately
defined; they consist in a simple fact, or in a principle
without its application in detail.29 But the difficulty begins
when it is not the obedience of the township, but that of the
town officers, that is to be enforced. All the reprehensible
actions which a public functionary can commit are reducible to
the following heads:

He may execute the law without energy or zeal;
He may neglect what the law requires;
He may do what the law forbids.

Only the last two violations of duty can come before a legal
tribunal; a positive and appreciable fact is the indispensable
foundation of an action at law. Thus, if the selectmen omit the
legal formalities usual at town elections, they may be fined.30
But when the officer performs his duty unskillfully, or obeys the
letter of the law without zeal or energy, he is out of the reach
of judicial interference. The court of sessions, even when
clothed with administrative powers, is in this case unable to
enforce a more satisfactory obedience. The fear of removal is the
only check to these quasi-offenses, and the court of sessions
does not originate the town authorities; it cannot remove functionaries whom it does
not appoint. Moreover, a perpetual supervision would be necessary
to convict the officer of negligence or lukewarmness. Now, the
court of sessions sits but twice a year, and then only judges
such offenses as are brought to its notice. The only security for
that active and enlightened obedience which a court of justice
cannot enforce upon public functionaries lies in their arbitrary
removal from office. In France this final security is exercised
by the heads of the administration; in America it is obtained
through the principle of election.
Thus, to recapitulate in a few words what I have described

If a public officer in New England commits a crime in the
exercise of his functions, the ordinary courts of justice are
always called upon to punish him.

If he commits a fault in his administrative capacity, a
purely administrative tribunal is empowered to punish him; and if
the affair is important or urgent, the judge does what the
functionary should have done.31

Lastly, if the same individual is guilty of one of those
intangible offenses which human justice can neither define nor
appreciate, he annually appears before a tribunal from which
there is no appeal, which can at once reduce him to
insignificance and deprive him of his charge. This system
undoubtedly possesses great advantages, but its execution is
attended with a practical difficulty, which it is important to
point out.

I have already observed that the administrative tribunal
which is called the court of sessions has no right of inspection
over the town officers. It can interfere only when the conduct of
a magistrate is specially brought under its notice; and this is
the delicate part of the system. The Americans of New England
have no public prosecutor for the court of sessions,32 and it may
readily be perceived that it would be difficult to create one. If
an accusing magistrate had merely been appointed in the chief
town of each county and had been unassisted by agents in the
townships, he would not have been better acquainted with what was
going on in the county than the members of the court of sessions. But to appoint
his agents in each township would have been to center} in his
person the most formidable of powers, that of a judicial
administration. Moreover, laws are the children of habit, and
nothing of the kind exists in the legislation of England. The
Americans have therefore divided the offices of inspection and
complaint, as well as all the other functions of the
administration. Grand jurors are bound by the law to apprise the
court to which they belong of all the misdemeanors which may have
been committed in their county.33 There are certain great
offenses that are officially prosecuted by the state; 34 but more
frequently the task of punishing delinquents devolves upon the
fiscal officer, whose province it is to receive the fine; thus
the treasurer of the township is charged with the prosecution of
such administrative offenses as fall under his notice. But a more
especial appeal is made by American legislation to the private
interest of each citizen;35 and this great principle is
constantly to be met with in studying the laws of the United
States. American legislators are more apt to give men credit for
intelligence than for honesty; and they rely not a little on personal
interest for the execution of the laws. When an individual
is really and sensibly injured by an administrative abuse, his
personal interest is a guarantee that he will prosecute. But if a
legal formality be required which, however advantageous to the
community, is of small importance to individuals, plaintiffs may
be less easily found; and thus, by a tacit agreement, the laws
may fall into disuse. Reduced by their system to this extremity,
the Americans are obliged to encourage informers by bestowing on
them a portion of the penalty in certain cases;36 and they thus
ensure the execution of the laws by the dangerous expedient of degrading the
morals of the people.

Above the county magistrates there is, properly speaking, no
administrative power, but only a power of government.

GENERAL REMARKS ON ADMINISTRATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
Differences of the states of the Union in their systems of
administration--Activity and perfection of the town authorities
decreases towards the South--Power of the magistrates in; that of
the voter diminishes--Administration passes from the township to
the county--States of New York; Ohio; Pennsylvania--Principles of
administration applicable to the whole Union--Election of public
officers, and inalienability of their functions--Absence of
gradation of ranks--Introduction of judicial procedures into the
administration.

I HAVE already said that, after examining the constitution of the
township and the county of New England in detail, I should take a
general view of the remainder of the Union. Townships and town
arrangements exist in every state, but in no other part of the
Union is a township to be met with precisely similar to those of
New England. The farther we go towards the South, the less active
does the business of the township or parish become; it has fewer
magistrates, duties, and rights; the population exercises a less
immediate influence on affairs; town meetings are less frequent,
and the subjects of debate less numerous. The power of the
elected magistrate is augmented and that of the voter diminished,
while the public spirit of the local communities is less excited
and less influential.37 These differences may be perceived to a
certain extent in the state of New York; they are very evident in
Pennsylvania; but they become less striking as we advance to the
Northwest. The majority of the immigrants who settle in the
Northwestern states are natives of New England, and they carry
the administrative habits of their mother country with them into
the country which they adopt. A township in Ohio is not unlike a
township in Massachusetts.

We have seen that in Massachusetts the mainspring of public
administration lies in the township It forms the common center of
the interests and affections of the citizens. But this ceases to
be the case as we descend to the states in which knowledge is
less generally diffused, and where the township consequently
offers fewer guarantees of a wise and active administrative. As
we leave New England, therefore, we find that the importance of
the town is gradually transferred to the county, which becomes
the center of administration and the intermediate power between
the government and the citizen. In Massachusetts the business of
the county is conducted by the court of sessions, which is
composed of a quorum appointed by the governor and his council;
but the county has no representative assembly, and its
expenditure is voted by the state legislature. In the great state
of New York, on the contrary, and in those of Ohio and
Pennsylvania, the inhabitants of each county choose a certain
number of representatives, who constitute the assembly of the
county.38 The county assembly has the right of taxing the
inhabitants to a certain extent; and it is in this respect a real
legislative body. At the same time it exercises an executive
power in the county, frequently directs the administration of the
townships, and restricts their authority within much narrower
bounds than in Massachusetts.

Such are the principal differences which the systems of
county and town administration present in the Federal states.
Were it my intention to examine the subject in detail, I should
have to point out still further differences in the executive
details of the several communities. But I have said enough to
show the general principles on which the administration in the United States
rests. These principles are differently applied; their
consequences are more or less numerous in various localities, but
they are always substantially the same. The laws differ and their
outward features change, but the same spirit animates them. If
the township and the county are not everywhere organized in the
same manner, it is at least true that in the United States the
county and the township are always based upon the same principle:
namely, that everyone is the best judge of what concerns himself
alone, and the most proper person to supply his own wants. The
township and the county are therefore bound to take care of their
special interests; the state governs, but does not execute the
laws. Exceptions to this principle may be met with, but not a
contrary principle.

The first result of this doctrine has been to cause all the
magistrates to be chosen either by the inhabitants or at least
from among them. As the officers are everywhere elected or
appointed for a certain period, it has been impossible to
establish the rules of a hierarchy of authorities; there are
almost as many independent functionaries as there are functions,
and the executive power is disseminated in a multitude of hands.
Hence arose the necessity of introducing the control of the
courts of justice over the administration, and the system of
pecuniary penalties, by which the secondary bodies and their
representatives are constrained to obey the laws. One finds this
system from one end of the Union to the other. The power of
punishing administrative misconduct, or of performing, in urgent
cases, administrative acts, has not, however, been bestowed on
the same judges in all the states. The Anglo-Americans derived
the institution of justices of the peace from a common source;
but although it exists in all the states, it is not always turned
to the same use. The justices of the peace everywhere participate
in the administration of the townships and the counties,39 either
as public OFFICERS or as the judges of public misdemeanors; but
in most of the states the more important public offenses come
under the cognizance of the ordinary tribunals.

Thus the election of public officers, or the inalienability
of their functions, the absence of a gradation of powers, and the
introduction of judicial action over the secondary branches of
the administration are the principal and universal characteristics of
the American system from Maine to the Floridas. In some states
(and that of New York has advanced most in this direction) traces
of a centralized administration begin to be discernible. In the
state of New York the officers of the central government exercise,
in certain cases, a sort of inspection or control over the
secondary bodies.40 At other times they constitute a sort of
court of appeal for the decision of affairs.41 In the state of
New York judicial penalties are less used than in other places as
a means of administration; and the right of prosecuting the
offenses of public officers is vested in fewer hands.42 The same
tendency is faintly observable in some other states;43 but in
general the prominent feature of the administration in the United States
is its excessive decentralization.

OF THE STATE

I HAVE, described the townships and the administration; it
now remains for me to speak of the state and the government. This
is ground I may pass over rapidly without fear of being misunderstood,
for all I have to say is to be found in the various
written constitutions, copies of which are easily to be procured.
These constitutions rest upon a simple and rational theory; most
of their forms have been adopted by all constitutional nations,
and have become familiar to us.

Here, then, I have only to give a brief account; I shall
endeavor afterwards to pass judgment upon what I now describe.

LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THE STATE. Division of the legislative body
into two houses--Senate--House of representatives--Different
functions of these two bodies.

THE legislative power of the state is vested in two assemblies,
the first of which generally bears the name of the Senate.

The Senate is commonly a legislative body, but it sometimes
becomes an executive and judicial one. It takes part in the
government in several ways, according to the constitution of the
different states; 44 but it is in the nomination of public
functionaries that it most commonly assumes an executive power.
It partakes of judicial power in the trial of certain political
offenses, and sometimes also in the decision of certain civil
cases.45 The number of its members is always small.

The other branch of the legislature, which is usually called
the House of Representatives, has no share whatever in the
administration and takes a part in the judicial power only as it
impeaches public functionaries before the Senate.

The members of the two houses are nearly everywhere subject
to the same conditions of eligibility. They are chosen in the
same manner, and by the same citizens. The only difference which
exists between them is that the term for which the Senate is
chosen is, in general, longer than that of the House of Representatives.
The latter seldom remain in office longer than a year; the former
usually sit two or three years.

By granting to the senators the privilege of being chosen
for several years, and being renewed seriatim, the law takes care
to preserve in the legislative body a nucleus of men already
accustomed to public business, and capable of exercising a
salutary influence upon the new-comers.

By this separation of the legislative body into two branches
the Americans plainly did not desire to make one house hereditary
and the other elective, one aristocratic and the other
democratic. It was not their object to create in the one a
bulwark to power. while the other represented the interests and
passions of the people. The only advantages that result from the
present constitution of the two houses in the United States are
the division of the legislative power, and the consequent check
upon political movements; together with the creation of a
tribunal of appeal for the revision of the laws.

Time and experience, however, have convinced the Americans
that, even if these are its only advantages, the division of the
legislative power is still a principle of the greatest necessity.
Pennsylvania was the only one of the United States which at first
attempted to establish a single House of Assembly, and Franklin
himself was so far carried away by the logical consequences of
the principle of the sovereignty of the people as to have
concurred in the measure; but the Pennsylvanians were soon
obliged to change the law and to create two houses. Thus the
principle of the division of the legislative power was finally
established, and its necessity may henceforward be regarded as a
demonstrated truth. This theory, nearly unknown to the republics
of antiquity, first introduced into the world almost by accident,
like so many other great truths, and misunderstood by several
modern nations has at length become an axiom in the political
science of the present age.

THE EXECUTIVE POWER OF THE STATE. Office of governor in an
state--His relation to the legislature--His rights
and his duties--His dependence on the people.

THE executive power of the state is represented by the governor.
It is not by accident that I have used this word; the governor
represents this power, although he enjoys but a portion of its
rights.The supreme magistrate, under the title of governor, is
the official moderator and counselor of the legislature. He is
armed with a veto or suspensive power, which allows him to stop,
or at least to retard, its movements at pleasure. He lays the
wants of the country before the legislative body, and points out
the means that he thinks may be usefully employed in providing
for them; he is the natural executor of its decrees in all the
undertakings that interest the nation at large.46 In the absence
of the legislature, the governor is bound to take all necessary
steps to guard the state against violent shocks and unforeseen
dangers.

The whole military power of the state is at the disposal of
the governor. He is the commander of the militia and head of the
armed force. When the authority which is by general consent
awarded to the laws is disregarded, the governor puts himself at
the head of the armed force of the state, to quell resistance and
restore order.

Lastly, the governor takes no share in the administration of
the townships and counties, except through the appointment of
justices of the peace, whom he cannot afterwards dismiss.47

The governor is an elected magistrate, and is generally
chosen for one or two years only, so that he always continues to
be strictly dependent upon the majority who returned him.

POLITICAL EFFECTS OF DECENTRALIZED THE UNITED STATES. Necessary
distinction between a centralized government and a centralized
administration--Administration not centralized in the United
States: great centralization of the government--Some bad
consequences resulting to the United States from the extremely
decentralized administration--Administrative advantages of this
order of things--The power that administers is less regular, less
enlightened, less learned, but much greater than in
Europe--Political advantages of this order of things--171 the
United States the country makes itself felt everywhere--Support
given to the government by the community--Provincial institutions
more necessary in proportion as the social condition becomes more
democratic--Reason for this.

"CENTRALIZATION" is a word in general and daily use, without any
precise meaning being attached to it. Nevertheless, there exist
two distinct kinds of centralization, which it is necessary to
discriminate with accuracy.

Certain interests are common to all parts of a nation, such
as the enactment of its general laws and the maintenance of its
foreign relations. Other interests are peculiar to certain parts
of the nation, such, for instance, as the business of the several
townships. When the power that directs the former or general
interests is concentrated in one place or in the same persons, it
constitutes a centralized government. To concentrate in like
manner in one place the direction of the latter or local
interests, constitutes what may be termed a centralized
administration.

Upon some points these two kinds of centralization coincide,
but by classifying the objects which fall more particularly
within the province of each, they may easily be distinguished

It is evident that a centralized government acquires immense
power when united to centralized administration. Thus combined,
it accustoms men to set their own will habitually and completely
aside; to submit, not only for once, or upon one point, but in
every respect, and at all times. Not only, therefore, does this
union of power subdue them compulsorily, but it affects their
ordinary habits; it isolates them and then influences each
separately.

These two kinds of centralization assist and attract each
other, but they must not be supposed to be inseparable. It is
impossible to imagine a more completely centralized government
than that which existed in France under Louis XIV; when the same
individual was the author and the interpreter of the laws, and
the representative of France at home and abroad, he was justified
in asserting that he constituted the state. Nevertheless, the
administration was much less centralized under Louis XIV than it
is at the present day.

In England the centralization of the government is carried
to great perfection; the state has the compact vigor of one man,
and its will puts immense masses in motion and turns its whole
power where it pleases. But England, which has done such great
things for the last fifty years, has never centralized its
administration. Indeed, I cannot conceive that a nation can live and prosper
without a powerful centralization of government. But I am of the
opinion that a centralized administration is fit only to enervate
the nations in which it exists, by incessantly diminishing their
local spirit. Although such an administration can bring together
at a given moment, on a given point, all the disposable resources
of a people, it injures the renewal of those resources. It may
ensure a victory in the hour of strife, but it gradually relaxes
the sinews of strength. It may help admirably the transient
greatness of a man, but not the durable prosperity of a nation.

Observe that whenever it is said that a state cannot act
because it is not centralized, it is the centralization of the
government that is spoken of. It is frequently asserted, and I
assent to the proposition, that the German Empire has never been
able to bring all its powers into action. But the reason is that
the state has never been able to enforce obedience to its general
laws; the several members of that great body always claimed the
right, or found the means, of refusing their co-operation to the
representatives of the common authority, even in the affairs that
concerned the mass of the people; in other words, there was no
centralization of government. The same remark is applicable to
the Middle Ages; the cause of all the miseries of feudal society
was that the control, not only of administration, but of
government, was divided among a thousand hands and broken up in a
thousand different ways. The want of a centralized government
prevented the nations of Europe from advancing with energy in any
straightforward course.

I have shown that in the United States there is no
centralized administration and no hierarchy of public
functionaries. Local authority has been carried farther than any
European nation could endure without great inconvenience, and it
has even produced some disadvantageous consequences in America.
But in the United States the centralization of the government is
perfect; and it would be easy to prove that the national power is
more concentrated there than it has ever been in the old nations
of Europe. Not only is there but one legislative body in each
state, not only does there exist but one source of political
authority, but numerous assemblies in districts or counties have
not, in general, been multiplied lest they should be tempted to
leave their administrative duties and interfere with the
government. In America the legislature of
each state is supreme; nothing can impede its authority, neither
privileges, nor local immunities, nor personal influence, nor
even the empire of reason, since it represents that majority
which claims to be the sole organ of reason. Its own
determination is therefore the only limit to its action. In
juxtaposition with it, and under its immediate control, is the
representative of the executive power, whose duty it is to
constrain the refractory to submit by superior force. The only
symptom of weakness lies in certain details of the action of the
government. The American republics have no standing armies to
intimidate a discontented minority; but as no minority has as yet
been reduced to declare open war, the necessity of an army has
not been felt. The state usually employs the officers of the
township or the county to deal with the citizens. Thus, for
instance, in New England the town assessor fixes the rate of
taxes; the town collector receives them; the town treasurer
transmits the amount to the public treasury; and the disputes
that may arise are brought before the ordinary courts of justice.
This method of collecting taxes is slow as well as inconvenient,
and it would prove a perpetual hindrance to a government whose
pecuniary demands were large. It is desirable that, in whatever
materially affects its existence, the government should be served
by officers of its own, appointed by itself, removable at its
pleasure, and accustomed to rapid methods of proceeding. But it
will always be easy for the central government, organized as it
is in America, to introduce more energetic and efficacious modes
of action according to its wants.

The want of a centralized government will not, then, as has
often been asserted, prove the destruction of the republics of
the New World; far from the American governments being not sufficiently
centralized, I shall prove hereafter that they are too
much so. The legislative bodies daily encroach upon the authority
of the government, and their tendency, like that of the French
Convention, is to appropriate it entirely to themselves. The
social power thus centralized is constantly changing hands,
because it is subordinate to the power of the people. It often
forgets the maxims of wisdom and foresight in the consciousness
of its strength. Hence arises its danger. Its vigor, and not its
impotence, will probably be the cause of its ultimate
destruction.

The system of decentralized administration produces several
different effects in America. The Americans seem to me to have
overstepped the limits of sound policy in isolating the
administration of the government; for order, even in secondary affairs, is a
matter of national importance.48 As the state has no administrative
functionaries of its own, stationed on different points of
its territory, to whom it can give a common impulse, the
consequence is that it rarely attempts to issue any general
police regulations. The want of these regulations is severely
felt and is frequently observed by Europeans. The appearance of
disorder which prevails on the surface leads one at first to
imagine that society is in a state of anarchy; nor does one
perceive one's mistake till one has gone deeper into the subject.
Certain undertakings are of importance to the whole state; but
they cannot be put in execution, because there is no state
administration to direct them. Abandoned to the exertions of the
towns or counties, under the care of elected and temporary
agents, they lead to no result, or at least to no durable
benefit.

The partisans of centralization in Europe are wont to
maintain that the government can administer the affairs of each
locality better than the citizens can do it for themselves. This
may be true when the central power is enlightened and the local
authorities are ignorant; when it is alert and they are slow;
when it is accustomed to act and they to obey. Indeed, it is
evident that this double tendency must augment with the increase
of centralization, and that the readiness of the one and the
incapacity of the others must become more and more prominent. But
I deny that it is so when the people are as enlightened, as awake
to their interests, and as accustomed to reflect on them as the
Americans are. I am persuaded, on the contrary, that in this case
the collective strength of the citizens will always conduce more
efficacious to the public welfare than the authority of the
government. I know it is difficult to point out with certainty
the means of arousing a sleeping population and of giving it
passions and knowledge which it does not possess; it is, I am
well aware, an arduous task to persuade men to busy themselves
about their own affairs. It would frequently be easier to interest
them in the punctilios of court etiquette than in the repairs
of their common dwelling. But whenever a central administration
affects completely to supersede the desirous to mislead.
However enlightened and skillfull a central
power may be, it cannot of itself embrace all the details of the
life of a great nation. Such vigilance exceeds the powers of man.
And when it attempts unaided to create and set in motion so many
complicated springs, it must submit to a very imperfect result or
exhaust itself in bootless efforts.

Centralization easily succeeds, indeed, in subjecting the
external actions of men to a certain uniformity, which we come at
last to love for its own sake, independently of the objects to
which it is applied, like those devotees who worship the statue
and forget the deity it represents. Centralization imparts
without difficulty an admirable regularity to the routine of
business; provides skillfully for the details of the social
police; represses small disorders and petty misdemeanors;
maintains society in a status quo alike secure from improvement
and decline; and perpetuates a drowsy regularity in the conduct
of affairs which the heads of the administration are wont to call
good order and public tranquillity; 49 in short, it excels in
prevention, but not in action. Its force deserts it when society
is to be profoundly moved, or accelerated in its course; and if
once the co-operation of private citizens is necessary to the
furtherance of its measures, the secret of its impotence is
disclosed. Even while the centralized power, in its despair,
invokes the assistance of the citizens, it says to them: "You
shall act just as I please, as much as I please, and in the
direction which I please. You are to take charge of the details
without aspiring to guide the system; you are to work in
darkness; and afterwards you may judge my work by its results."
These are not the conditions on which the alliance of the human
will is to be obtained; it must be free in its gait and
responsible for its acts, or (such is the constitution
of man) the citizen had rather remain a passive spectator than a
dependent actor in schemes with which he is unacquainted.

It is undeniable that the want of those uniform regulations
which control the conduct of every inhabitant of France is not
infrequently felt in the United States. Gross instances of social
indifference and neglect are to be met with; and from time to
time disgraceful blemishes are seen, in complete contrast with
the surrounding civilization. Useful undertakings which cannot
succeed without perpetual attention and rigorous exactitude are
frequently abandoned; for in America, as well as in other
countries, the people proceed by sudden impulses and momentary
exertions. The European, accustomed to find a functionary always
at hand to interfere with all he undertakes, reconciles himself
with difficulty to the complex mechanism of the administration of
the townships. In general it may be affirmed that the lesser
details of the police, which render life easy and comfortable,
are neglected in America, but that the essential guarantees of
man in society are as strong there as elsewhere. In America the
power that conducts the administration is far less regular, less
enlightened, and less skillful, but a hundredfold greater than in
Europe. In no country in the world do the citizens make such
exertions for the common weal. I know of no people who have
established schools so numerous and efficacious, places of public
worship better suited to the wants of the inhabitants, or roads
kept in better repair. Uniformity or permanence of design, the
minute arrangement of details,50 and the perfection of
administrative system must not be sought for in
the United States; what we find there is the presence of a power
which, if it is somewhat wild, is at least robust, and an
existence checkered with accidents, indeed, but full of animation
and effort.

Granting, for an instant, that the villages and counties of
the United States would be more usefully governed by a central au
authority which they had never seen than by functionaries taken
from among them; admitting, for the sake of argument, that there
would be more security in America, and the resources of society
would be better employed there, if the whole administration centered
in a single arm--still the political advantages which the
Americans derive from their decentralized system would induce me
to prefer it to the contrary plan. It profits me but little,
after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the
tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers
from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority
is the absolute master of my liberty and my life, and if it so
monopolizes movement and life that when it languishes everything
languishes around it, that when it sleeps everything must sleep,
and that when it dies the state itself must perish.

There are countries in Europe where the native considers
himself as a kind of settler, indifferent to the fate of the spot
which he inhabits. The greatest changes are effected there
without his concurrence, and (unless chance may have apprised him
of the event ) without his knowledge; nay, more, the condition of
his village, the police of his street, the repairs of the church
or the parsonage, do not concern him; for he looks upon all these
things as unconnected with himself and as the property of a
powerful stranger whom he calls the government. He has only a
life interest in these possessions, without the spirit of
ownership or any ideas of improvement. This want of interest in
his own affairs goes so far that if his own safety or that of his
children is at last endangered, instead of trying to avert the
peril, he will fold his arms and wait till the whole nation comes
to his aid. This man who has so completely sacrificed his own
free will does not, more than any other person, love obedience;
he cowers, it is true, before the pettiest officer, but
he braves the law with the spirit of a conquered foe as soon as
its superior force is withdrawn; he perpetually oscillates
between servitude and license.

When a nation has arrived at this state, it must either
change its customs and its laws, or perish; for the source of
public virtues is dried up; and though it may contain subjects,
it has no citizens. Such communities are a natural prey to
foreign conquests; and if they do not wholly disappear from the
scene, it is only because they are surrounded by other nations
similar or inferior to themselves; it is because they still have
an indefinable instinct of patriotism; and an involuntary pride
in the name of their country, or a vague reminiscence of its
bygone fame, suffices to give them an impulse of
self-preservation.

Nor can the prodigious exertions made by certain nations to
defend a country in which they had lived, so to speak, as strangers
be adduced in favor of such a system; for it will be found
that in these cases their main incitement was religion. The
permanence, the glory, or the prosperity of the nation had become
parts of their faith, and in defending their country, they
defended also that Holy City of which they were all citizens. The
Turkish tribes have never taken an active share in the conduct of
their affairs, but they accomplished stupendous enterprises as
long as the victories of the Sultan were triumphs of the
Mohammedan faith. In the present age they are in rapid decay
because their religion is departing and despotism only remains.
Montesquieu, who attributed to absolute power an authority
peculiar to itself, did it, as I conceive, an undeserved honor;
for despotism, taken by itself, can maintain nothing durable. On
close inspection we shall find that religion, and not fear, has
ever been the cause of the longlived prosperity of an absolute
government. Do what you may, there is no true power among men
except in the free union of their will; and patriotism and
religion are the only two motives in the world that can long urge
all the people towards the same end.

Laws cannot rekindle an extinguished faith, but men may be
interested by the laws in the fate of their country. It depends
upon the laws to awaken and direct the vague impulse of
patriotism, which never abandons the human heart; and if it be
connected with the thoughts, the passions, and the daily habits
of life, it may be consolidated into a durable and rational
sentiment. Let it not be said that it is too late to make the experiment; for nations
do not grow old as men do, and every fresh generation is a new
people ready for the care of the legislator.

It is not the administrative, but the political effects of
decentralization that I most admire in America. In the United
States the interests of the country are everywhere kept in view;
they are an object of solicitude to the people of the whole
Union, and every citizen is as warmly attached to them as if they
were his own. He takes pride in the glory of his nation; he
boasts of its success, to which he conceives himself to have
contributed; and he rejoices in the general prosperity by which
he profits. The feeling he entertains towards the state is
analogous to that which unites him to his family, and it is by a
kind of selfishness that he interests himself in the welfare of
his country.

To the European, a public officer represents a superior
force; to an American, he represents a right. In America, then,
it may be said that no one renders obedience to man, but to
justice and to law. If the opinion that the citizen entertains of
himself is exaggerated, it is at least salutary; he
unhesitatingly confides in his own powers, which appear to him to
be all-sufficient. When a private individual meditates an
undertaking, however directly connected it may be with the
welfare of society, he never thinks of soliciting the
co-operation of the government; but he publishes his plan, offers
to execute it, courts the assistance of other individuals, and
struggles manfully against all obstacles. Undoubtedly he is often
less successful than the state might have been in his position;
but in the end the sum of these private undertakings far exceeds
all that the government could have done.

As the administrative authority is within the reach of the
citizens, whom in some degree it represents, it excites neither
their jealousy nor hatred; as its resources are limited, everyone
feels that he must not rely solely on its aid. Thus when the
administration thinks fit to act within its own limits, it is not
abandoned to itself, as in Europe; the duties of private citizens
are not supposed to have lapsed because the state has come into
action, but everyone is ready, on the contrary, to guide and
support it. This action of individuals, joined to that of the
public authorities, frequently accomplishes what the most
energetic centralized administration would be unable to do.51

It would be easy to adduce several facts in proof of what I
advance, but I had rather give only one, with which I am best acquainted.
In America the means that the authorities have at their
disposal for the discovery of crimes and the arrest of criminals
are few. A state police does not exist, and passports are
unknown. The criminal police of the United States cannot be
compared with that of France; the magistrates and public agents
are not numerous; they do not always initiate the measures for
arresting the guilty; and the examinations of prisoners are rapid
and oral. Yet I believe that in no country does crime more rarely
elude punishment. The reason is that everyone conceives himself
to be interested in furnishing evidence of the crime and in
seizing the delinquent. During my stay in the United States I
witnessed the spontaneous formation of committees in a county for
the pursuit and prosecution of a man who had committed a great
crime. In Europe a criminal is an unhappy man who is struggling
for his life against the agents of power, while the people are
merely a spectator of the conflict; in America he is looked upon
as an enemy of the human race, and the whole of mankind is
against him.

I believe that provincial institutions are useful to all
nations, but nowhere do they appear to me to be more necessary
than among a democratic people. In an aristocracy order can
always be maintained in the midst of liberty; and as the rulers
have a great deal to lose, order is to them a matter of great
interest. In like manner an aristocracy protects the people from
the excesses of despotism, because it always possesses an
organized power ready to resist a despot. But a democracy without
provincial institutions has no security against these evils. How
can a populace unaccustomed to freedom in small concerns learn to
use it temperately in great affairs? What resistance can be
offered to tyranny in a country where each individual is weak and
where the citizens are not united by any common interest? Those
who dread the license of the mob and those who fear absolute
power ought alike to desire the gradual development of provincial
liberties.

I am also convinced that democratic nations are most likely
to fall beneath the yoke of a centralized administration, for
several reasons, among which is the following:

The constant tendency of these nations is to concentrate all
the strength of the government in the hands of the only power
that directly represents the people; because beyond the people
nothing is to be perceived but a mass of equal individuals. But when the
same power already has all the attributes of government, it can
scarcely refrain from penetrating into the details of the administration,
and an opportunity of doing so is sure to present
itself in the long run, as was the case in France. In the French
Revolution there were two impulses in opposite directions, which
must never be confounded; the one was favorable to liberty, the
other to despotism. Under the ancient monarchy the king was the
sole author of the laws; and below the power of the sovereign
certain vestiges of provincial institutions, half destroyed, were
still distinguishable. These provincial institutions were
incoherent, ill arranged, and frequently absurd; in the hands of
the aristocracy they had sometimes been converted into
instruments of oppression. The Revolution declared itself the
enemy at once of royalty and of provincial institutions; it
confounded in indiscriminate hatred all that had preceded it,
despotic power and the checks to its abuses; and its tendency was
at once to republicanize and to centralize This double character
of the French Revolution is a fact which has been adroitly
handled by the friends of absolute power. Can they be accused of
laboring in the cause of despotism when they are defending that
centralized administration which was one of the great innovations
of the Revolution? 52 In this manner popularity may be united
with hostility to the rights of the people, and the secret slave
of tyranny may be the professed lover of freedom.

I have visited the two nations in which the system of
provincial liberty has been most perfectly established, and I
have listened to the opinions of different parties in those
countries. In America I met with men who secretly aspired to
destroy the democratic institutions of the Union; in England I
found others who openly attacked the aristocracy; but I found no
one who did not regard provincial independence as a great good.
In both countries I heard a thousand different causes assigned
for the evils of the state, but the local system was never
mentioned among them. I heard citizens attribute the power and
prosperity of their country to a multitude of reasons, but they
all placed the advantages of local institutions in the foremost
rank.

Am I to suppose that when men who are naturally so divided
on religious opinions and on political theories agree on one
point (and that one which they can best judge, as it is one of which
they have daily experience) they are all in error? The only
nations which deny the utility of provincial liberties are those
which have fewest of them; in other words, only those censure the
institution who do not know it.

Footnotes

1 In 1830 there were 305 townships in the state of
Massachusetts, and 610,014 inhabitants; which gives an average of
about 2,000 inhabitants to each township.
2 The same rules are not applicable to the cities, which
generally have a mayor, and a corporation divided into two
bodies, this, however, is an exception that requires the sanction
of a law.--See the Act of February 22, 1822, regulating the
powers of the city of Boston. Laws of Massachusetts, Vol. II, p.
588. It frequently happens that small towns, as well as cities,
are subject to a peculiar administration. In 1832, 104 townships
in the state of New York were governed in this manner. Williams's
Register.
3 Three selectmen are appointed in the small townships, and
nine in the large ones.--See The Town Officer, p. 186. See also
the principal laws of Massachusetts relating to selectmen: law of
February 20, 1780, Vol. I, p. 219, February 24, 1796, Vol. I, p.
488; March 7, 1801, Vol. II, p. 45; June 16, 1795, Vol. I, p.
475- March 12 1808, Vol. II, p. 186- February 28, 1787, Vol. I,
p. 302; June 22, 1797, Vol. I, p 539.
4 See Laws of Massachusetts, Vol. I, p. 150. Law of March
25,1786.
5 Ibid.
6 All these magistrates actually exist; their different
functions are all detailed in a book called The Town Officer, by
Isaac Goodwin (Worcester, 1827), and the General Laws of
Massachusetts in 3 vols. (Boston, 1823).
7 See Laws of Massachusetts, law of March 23, 1786, Vol. I, p. 250.
8 Ibid., law of February 20, 1786, Vol. I, p. 217.
9 Ibid., law of June 25, 1789, Vol. I, p. 367, and of March 8, 1827,
Vol. III, p. 179.
10 See Laws of Massachusetts, law of February 14, 1821, Vol. I, p. 551.
11 Ibid., law of February 20, 1819, Vol. II, p. 494.
12 The council of the governor is an elective body.
13 See Laws of Massachusetts, law of November 2, 1791, Vol. I, p.61.
14 See The Town-Officer, especially at the words SELECTMEN,
ASSESSORS COLLECTORS, SCHOOLS, SURVEYORS OF HIGHWAYS. I take one
example in a thousand: the state prohibits traveling on Sunday
without good reason; the tithing-men, who are town officers, are
required to keep watch and to execute the law. See Laws of
Massachusetts, law of March 8, 1792, Vol. I, p. 410.
The selectmen draw up the lists of voters for the election
of the governor and transmit the result of the ballot to the
state secretary of state. Ibid., law of February 24, 1790, Vol.
I, p. 488.
15 Thus, for instance, the selectmen authorize the
construction of drains, and point out the proper sites for
slaughterhouses and other trades which are a nuisance to the
neighborhood. See ibid., law of June 7, 1785, Vol. I, p. 193.
16 For example, the selectmen, conjointly with the justices
of the peace, take measures for the security of the public in
case of contagious diseases Ibid., law of June 22, 1797, Vol. I,
p. 539.
17 I say almost, for there are many incidents in town life
which are regulated by the justices of peace in their individual
capacity, or by an assembly of them in the chief town of the
county; thus, licenses are granted by the justices. See ibid.,
Law of February 28, 1797, Vol. I, p. 297.
18 Thus, licenses are granted only to such persons as can
produce a certificate of good conduct from the selectmen. If the
selectmen refuse to give the certificate, the party may appeal to
the justices assembled in the court of sessions, and they may
grant the license. See ibid., law of March 12, 1808, Vol. II, p.
186. The townships have the right to make by-laws, and to enforce
them by fines, which are fixed by law; but these by-laws must be
approved by the court of sessions. Ibid., Law of March 25, 1786,
Vol. I, p. 254.
19 In Massachusetts the county magistrates are frequently
called upon to investigate the acts of the town magistrates; but
it will be shown farther on that this investigation is a
consequence, not of their administrative, but of their judicial
power.
20 Thus, the town school committees are obliged to make an
annual report to the secretary of the state on the condition of
the schools. See ibid., law of March 10, 1827, Vol. III, p. 183.
21 Later on we shall see the nature of the governor's
functions; here it is enough to note that the governor represents
the entire executive power of the state.
22 See Constitution of Massachusetts Chap. II. section 1,
paragraph 9; Chap. II, paragraph 3.
23 Thus, as one example among many others, a stranger
arrives in a township from a country where a contagious disease
prevails, and he falls ill. Two justices of the peace can, with
the assent of the selectmen, order the sheriff of the county to
remove and take care of him. Laws of Massachusetts, law of June
22, 1797, Vol. I, p. 540. In general the justices interfere in
all the important acts of the administration and give them a
semi-judicial character.
24 I say most of them because certain administrative
misdemeanors are brought before the ordinary tribunals. If, for
instance, a township refuses to make the necessary expenditure
for its schools, or to name a school committee, it is liable to a
heavy fine. But this penalty is pronounced by the supreme
judicial court or the court of common pleas. See ibid., law of
March 10, 1821, Vol. III, p. 190. For the failure of the town to
make provision for military supplies, see ibid., law of February
21, 1822, Vol. II, p. 570.
25 In their individual capacity the justices of the peace
take a part in the business of the counties and townships. In
general the most important acts of the town can be performed only
with the concurrence of some one of them.
26 These affairs may be brought under the following heads:
(1) the creation of prisons and courts of justice; (2) the
county budget, which is afterwards voted by the state
legislature; (3) the distribution of the taxes so voted; (4)
grants of certain patents; (5) the building and repair of the
county roads.
27 Thus, when a road is under consideration, the court of
sessions decides almost all questions regarding the execution of
the project with the aid of a jury.
28 See Laws of Massachusetts,, law of February 20, 1786,
Vol. I, p. 217.
29 There is an indirect method of enforcing the obedience of
a township. Suppose that the funds which the law demands for the
maintenance of the roads have not been voted; the town surveyor
is then authorized, ex officio. to levy the supplies. As he is
personally responsible to private individuals for the state of
the roads, and indictable before the court of sessions, he is
sure to employ the extraordinary right which the law gives him
against the township. Thus, by threatening the officer, the court
of sessions exacts compliance from the town. See ibid., law of
March S, 1787, Vol. I, p. 305.
30 Laws of Massachusetts, vol. II, p. 45.
31 If, for instance, a township persists in refusing to name
its assessors, the court of sessions nominates them; and the
magistrates thus appointed are in vested with the same authority
as elected officers. See ibid., the law of February 20, 1787,
previously cited.
32 I say the court of sessions because in common courts
there is an officer who exercises some of the functions of a
public prosecutor.
33 The grand jurors are, for instance, bound to inform the
court of the bad state of the roads. Laws of Massachusetts, Vol.
1, p. 308.
34 If, for instance, the treasurer of the county holds back
his accounts. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 400.
35 Thus, to take one example out of a thousand, if a private
individual breaks his carriage or is injured in consequence of
the badness of a road, he can sue the to township or the county
for damages at the sessions. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 309.
36 In cases of invasion or insurrection, if the town
officers neglect to furnish the necessary stores and ammunition
for the militia, the township may be condemned to a fine of from
1,000 to 2,700 francs. It may readily be imagined that, in such a
case, it might happen that no one would care to prosecute. Hence
the law adds that "any citizen may enter a complaint for offences
of this kind, and that half the fine shall belong to the
prosecutor." See ibid., law of March 6, 1810, Vol. II, p. 236.
The same clause is frequently found in the Laws of Massachusetts.
Not only are private individuals thus incited to prosecute the public
officers, but the public officers are encouraged in the same manner
to bring the disobedience of private individuals to justice. If a citizen
refuses to perform the work which has been assigned to him upon a
road, the road-surveyor may prosecute him, and, if he is
convicted, the surveyor receives half the penalty for himself.
See the law previously cited, Vol. I, p. 308.
37 For details, see the Revised Statutes of the State of New
York, Part I, chap. xi, "Of the powers, duties and privileges of
towns," Vol. I, pp. 336-64.
See, in the Digest of the Laws of Pennsylvania, the words
ASSESSORS, COLLECTOR, CONSTABLES, OVERSEER OF THE POOR,
SUPERVISORS OF HIGHWAYS. And in the Acts of a General Nature of
the State of Ohio, the Act of February 25, 1834, relating to
townships, p. 412. And note the special provisions relating to
various town officials such as TOWNSHIP'S CLERKS, TRUSTEES,
OVERSEERS OF THE POOR, FENCE-VIEWERS, APPRAISERS OF PROPERTY,
TOWNSHIP'S TREASURER, SUPERVISORS OF HIGHWAYS.
38 See the Revised Statutes of the State of New York Part I,
chap. xi Vol. I, p. 340; ibid., chap. xii, p. 366; also in the
Acts of the State of Ohio an act relating to county
commissioners, February 25, 1824, p. 263. See the Digest of the
Laws of Pennsylvania, at the words COUNTY-RATES and LEVIES, p.
170.
In the state of New York each township elects a
representative, who has a share in the administration of the
county as well as in that of the township.
39 In some of the Southern states the county courts are
charged with all the detail of the administration. See the
Statutes of the State of Tennessee, at Arts. JUDICIARY, TAXES,
etc.
40 For instance, the direction of public instruction is
centralized in the hands of the government. The legislature names
the members of the university, who are denominated regents; the
governor and lieutenant governor of the state are necessarily of
the number. ( Revised Statutes [of the state of New York], Vol.
I, p. 456. ) The regents of the university annually visit the
colleges and academies and make their report to the legislature.
Their superintendence is not inefficient, for several reasons:
the colleges, in order to become corporations, stand in need of a
charter, which is only granted on the recommendation of the
regents; every year funds are distributed by the state, for the
encouragement of learning, and the regents are the distributors
of this money. See Revised Statutes, chap. xv, "Public
Instruction," Vol. I, p. 455. The school commissioners are
obliged to send an annual report to the general superintendent of
the schools. Ibid., p. 488. A similar report is annually made to
the same person on the number and condition of the poor. Ibid.,
p. 631.
41 If anyone conceives himself to be wronged by the school
commissioners (who are town officers), he can appeal to the
superintendent of the primary schools, whose decision is final.
Revised Statutes, Vol. I, p. 487.
Provisions similar to those above cited are to be met with
from time to time in the laws of the state of New York, but in
general these attempts at centralization are feeble and
unproductive. The great authorities of the state have the right
of watching and controlling the subordinate agents, without that
of rewarding or punishing them. The same individual is never
empowered to give an order and to punish disobedience; he has,
therefore, the right of commanding without the means of exacting
compliance. In 1830 the Superintendent of Schools, in his annual
report to the legislature, complained that several school
commissioners, notwithstanding his application, had neglected to
furnish him with the accounts which were due. He added that "if
this omission continues, I shall be obliged to prosecute them, as
the law directs, before the proper tribunals."
42 Thus, the district attorney is directed to recover all
fines below the sum of fifty dollars, unless such a right has
been specially awarded to another magistrate. Revised Statutes,
Part I, chap. x, Vol. I, p. 383.
43 Several traces of centralization may be discovered in
Massachusetts; for instance, the committees of the town schools
are directed to make an annual report to the secretary of state.
Laws of Massachusetts, Vol. I, p. 361.
44 In Massachusetts the senate is not invested with any
administrative functions.
45 As in the state of New York.
46 Practically speaking, it is not always the governor who
executes the plans of the legislature- it often happens that the
latter, in voting a measure, names special agents to superintend
its execution.
47 In some of the states justices of the peace are not
appointed by the governor.
48 The authority that represents the state ought not, I
think, to waive the right of inspecting the local administration,
even when it does not itself administer. Suppose, for instance,
that an agent of the government was stationed at some appointed
spot in each county to prosecute the misdemeanors of the town and
county officers, would not a more uniform order be the result,
without in any way compromising the independence of the township?
Nothing of the kind, however, exists in America: there is nothing
above the county courts, which have, as it were, only an
incidental knowledge of the administrative offenses they ought to
repress.
49 China appears to me to present the most perfect instance
of that species of well-being which a highly centralized
administration may furnish to its subjects. Travelers assure us
that the Chinese have tranquillity without happiness, industry
without improvement, stability without strength, and public order
without public morality. The condition of society there is always
tolerable, never excellent. I imagine that when China is opened
to European observation, it will be found to contain the most
perfect model of a centralized administration that exists in the
universe.
50 A writer of talent who, in a comparison of the finances
of France with those of the United States, has proved that
ingenuity cannot always supply the place of the knowledge of
facts, justly reproaches the Americans for the sort of confusion
that exists in the accounts of the expenditure in the townships,
and after giving the model of a departmental budget in France, he
adds "We are indebted to centralization, that admirable invention
of a great man, for the order and method which prevail alike in
all the municipal budgets, from the largest city to the humblest
commune" Whatever may be my admiration of this result, when I see
the communes of France, with their excellent system of accounts,
plunged into the grossest ignorance of their true interests, and
abandoned to so incorrigible an apathy that they seem to vegetate
rather than to live; when, on the other hand, I observe the
activity, the information, and the spirit of enterprise in those
American townships whose budgets are neither methodical nor
uniform, I see that society there is always at work I am struck
by the spectacle; for, to my mind, the end of a good government
is to ensure the welfare of a people, and not merely to es-
tablish order in the midst of its misery I am therefore led to
suppose that the prosperity of the American townships and the
apparent confusion of their finances, the distress of the French
communes and the perfection or their budget, may be attributable to
the same cause At any rate, I am suspicious of a good that is united
with so many evils, and I am not averse to an evil that is compensated
by so many benefits.
51 See Appendix I
52 See Appendix K